


The Nownlee Girl

by SecundusPublius



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Horror, Monster - Freeform, Rape, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:01:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23331304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecundusPublius/pseuds/SecundusPublius
Summary: The seaside town of Neyna holds a secret, that once discovered, damages the mind. But it is as if Neyna's people cannot notice it...
Kudos: 3





	The Nownlee Girl

**Author's Note:**

> _Dear reader, a warning. This is a horror-smut homage to one of USA's greatest authors of dreadful stories. The horror outweighs the smut tenfold, and, until later chapters, will continue to do so. This is very much intended to be read as a love letter to the Eldritch Father, despite his questionable choice in naming cats; if you look for a simple and straightforward wank, I'm once again the wrong provider. But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless._

I am putting those words into writing with a meek, shaking hand. As I struggle to recollect, not through the fault of my memory, which maintains a strength despite all that assailed my weakening mind, but of sheer terror of the things now lurking in my thoughts. I am constantly asking myself whether words of such things should be committed to a page. I learned in those cursed days that words hold power and corrupt the mind; I assumed at first that it is the lips of the speaker which carry such an influence, but since I've learned my mistake. 

Trust me that all I am saying is true. To say it more precisely, I believe it to be true yet wish it wasn't. I would much rather accept the reality of madness over the reality I witnessed: know that if those words are ever read, I am lost, to death or worse. I pray - no, not pray, for I have seen who heeds our prayers and I would rather stay unheard, lest they hear - that it is not too late. That someone of greater power, mental and otherwise, than my own, learns of what happened in the town of Neyna, and finds a way to stop it once and for all. 

They know of me. They know that I have witnessed their deeds, and that I know the secret of the Nownlee girl. They will come for me, and make me one of theirs: that hideous creature they nurture and sing to, to which the Nownlee girl attends. 

…

It was my third day in the township of Neyna. I did not enjoy it much more than the two before it; while the weather was a delightful affair and my company has worked out for me a most acceptable accommodation, I was lulled into dreary melancholy by the sheer boredom that personified the town. Neyna was a port on a river's delta with nary a ship once a day: what the company saw in that town I did not know. I spoke with whomever mattered and found them agreeable, open-minded and extremely bland, men of a peaceful life who spent their years unburdened by urgency or great need, and thus unsharpened by neither. They were canvases, not people, and any paintbrush could draw on that canvas whatever it wished. 

It mattered little for my endeavour, or, rather, made it simple to achieve and to my professional spirit unfulfilling. Having reached what agreements I needed by the end of the second day, I've sent a telegram to the company as a confirmation of partnership and faced the dreadful realisation that a full week will pass before the engineers would arrive and I would be free to pursue opportunities in other places. Neyna had me in her clutches. Dreadful boredom robbed me of wisdom, and I looked for entertainment, and found it in one, and only one, place. 

I would wish to say it was a theatre, but Neyna did not possess a standing troupe. No, it was the township's pub. 

It was a place laced deeply with a heritage old and rich, yet dulled and greyed by the unbecoming atmosphere of Neyna. It was a pub - indeed, a proper pub, with little commonality to the bristling bars of my home city, where the drunkard found a fight as often as he found a glass of spirits. The choice of drinks given to me was poor but decent. I am a man of wine, but not a choosing one; my goal was to get drunk, and keep that state as long as I was stranded with little else given in reprieve. I think it was at four, or maybe five beyond noon, when I took my place crouched before a corner table in this homely place. I drank, then ate, then drank again, all while listening to Neynians discuss their uninspiring happenstance. 

I must admit in great shame that the unthinkable happened to me at this point. The certain details of that occurrence elude me, but out of the blue, in complete disregard to any decency - both as a human and a citizen - I fell asleep. I didn't even notice how Morpheus took me, nor did I realize, at first, that I was within his grasp: it felt, as best described, akin to a blink that by some cosmic humour took three hours to complete. As I was released from the dream, which I don't remember, I found myself seated, neatly, at the same table, and no one moved me nor disturbed me. I looked around in candid panic, quite ready to find myself surrounded with faces twisted in repulsive grins, but I did not. Neyna didn't notice my slumber, or, perhaps, of country good-naturedness pretended not to. I checked my pockets, wary of foul play - yet nothing I found missing, which soothed the mind, if little. 

I desired coffee as to break whatever bonds sleep still had on my mind. I mused what drove me to this mysterious break of character; I am not a man troubled by a corruption of sleep of any kind: I rarely even see dreams. I did not feel tired. Was it the mere dreary ghost of inaction that Neyna possessed that drove me to this state? I did not know, but suspected the final option. I took a glass of coffee, which refreshed me, and sat again at the corner table, thinking my situation through. 

It was at this moment that whatever gears served the horrible momentum of Fate had sprung to motion. At this moment it was all set. In my naivety I did not know it yet: how could I? But I looked at doom, at horror, at a thing beyond my understanding and couldn't even fathom it. I've seen her. With two men and two women, she sat, and ate with them, but did not say a word nor engage in any overt sort of talk or gossip. 

The thin, lithe woman with blonde hair. The Nownlee girl. 

She was divine. My heart, a thing not meek to the emotional, was pressed and twisted in ways I've never felt before. A thing like her I've never seen. No woman is more blessed. Her hair was of a warm, golden colour, and in my mind it was as if it borne light against the dusk of the forlorn pub. She sat with two pairs of young men and women, and ate a piece of bread. A moment pass she stood up and went, and only as she exited the doors the spell was broken. 

I am not a man without dexterity with written words, but I've tried, tried so hard to explain the woman I've seen, the blonde haired angel, and yet anything I formulated felt like ugly drivel. The Earth was ugly and unsuited for such a creature. She wore rags, and upon her skin the rags were prettier than royal dresses. She moved with reserved elegance. I am sorry. Once again, I'm sorry. Every memory of her makes me swoon like a child, like a navy officer forced to leave his sweetheart on-shore; with every memory of her, I desire to talk more and think more of her. Even now, as I know the secret of the Nownlee girl, I love her, and lust for her, and feel incomplete without her in my sight. 

Even knowing the secret, the ugly truth, I am a slave to her. 

I've stood up, and followed her. Bewitched, meek, like a boy taking his first glance at pure femininity. By some miracle I paid in advance, and all the better, for the thought of issuing a dollar from my coat did not occur to me. I was entranced, and walked where she walked, following her steps with no thought put into form. A plan I did not make, nor a concrete desire crossed my mind. I merely walked where she walked, and followed. The idea of losing sight of this angelic creature was heresy to me. 

It was dark outside, the second hour of the evening, I presume; she walked fast, and soon disappeared behind a crooked corner lodged between two houses, both roughly hundred feets away from where I slept my day away. 

The streets were sparse. A soul was nary. The folk of Neyna have abandoned it to evening dusk; they congregate to pubs, or else their homes. There is no night life in the town of Neyna. The tolling of the bells announces the desertion of the streets. There was nobody, thus, to witness my mindless walk towards my object of desire; I walked alone, illuminated nary by the glow of windows, and walked slowly, as if entranced. Yet with every step my mind was clearing; as the Nownlee girl, as I now know her, left my vision, hidden by the corner steps ahead, the spell she cast upon me with her unearthly beauty was now fading, and questions rampaged in my mind. 

Who was she? Why were the clothes upon her form so tattered and so dirty? Why didn't she produce a word, nor was she ever noticed - seemingly - by anyone but me? How dare they turn their eyes on the most elegant being to grace our realm? 

To those questions I had sparse an answer, so I walked. If only - by a miracle, or gift of providence, or maybe by a sign from higher powers - I would've dropped my machination and walked back. If only such a wisdom had occurred to me at this lightless hour that I had no business following a maiden in the darkness of a dreary town, that a stranger like myself had no place in dredging up whatever dealings Neyna had. If only I had turned away, and found my way towards my temporary dwellings, and fell asleep, forfeiting visions of the Nownlee girl to dreams and happy fantasies, I would've been spared. 

But I did not. I walked and witnessed, and, in my curiosity, my fate was written, signed and sealed. By forces higher than I could imagine - or even understand. 

I walked towards the corner and witnessed this. 

There was a couple. A man, young and widely-built, a vision of Dan Browning in his acting days: striking, but without a spark. He held by hand a partner, a short woman, who was his lesser in the realm of looks, but had a hearty warmth to the curve of her accepting smile. I stopped, and recoiled at the sight of them; in an intimate way they were embraced, and pushed me thus out of place, appalling me by the sudden voyeuristic act I've been unwillingly engaged in. Yet there also was the Nownlee girl. 

She went towards them, as if unnoticed, and once again I was under her spell. I looked and didn't brave to turn my sight away; to miss a second of her form was painful to consider to my chained mind. I stood and watched, barred from breathing. She came close, and made a sound similar to laughter, but weirdly constrained, producing visions of a throat confined and choked by hands invisible to sight. Of the publicly accessible affection she didn't mind nor notice; she came to them and pulled the man by hand, again producing the curious, stifled laugh, and the pair joined her in laughter, completely peaceful to the fact that their intimacy was robbed of them. The Nownlee girl has pulled the man away, yet to produce a word; she pulled him further, with a soft, yet certain hand, and like a proper child, he walked with her, ignoring his companion. She didn't take offence, just watched, and let him walk, and laughed at his timidity. The scene was alien to me. By sheer improperness it somehow softened the prison of my mind; I watched now with intent, not charmed lust towards the Nownlee girl. I needed, then, to know: what was happening in front of me, and why. There was no offence in what I've seen, but the actors of the dealing were all off-script, behaving not like people, but like actors in a scene, and I was pressed to see the final pages that scenario will bring. 

I watched the Nownlee girl lead the meekend man into a deeper darkness beyond my vision, and listened to the woman urging her partner towards this terrible unknown. They went, and disappeared from sight. 

I asked myself, partaking in the moment, whether I should make a move. Pretend, perhaps, that I am but a lollygagging citizen, caring for the safety of my streets. But I did not. I am ashamed to say that curiosity has lead my reason, and curiosity has sated my desire to inject; I was content to watch. I wonder, to this day, if there was something I could do in this forsaken alley, if that my act could change my fate, if not the fate of others. That the Nownlee girl could be confronted, and somehow stopped, by an outsider, not yet fully touched by her peculiarity. I wonder that, perhaps, but also know this wonder to be trite. There was nothing I could do, and so much better it would be if I had never been there. 

There was a silence, for a moment, yet soon a sound emerged to break it. A moan, produced by manly lungs, yet unbefitting to any man of pride; it was a vulnerable sound, the sound a child produces when struck with sudden pain, yet soon the moan repeated, and pain there was no more. A tenor, the chord of pleasure, the chord of man entrapped in ecstasy replaced it. I felt ashamed to even hear a sound like that; a streak of red has hit my face, no doubt, against disgust that broke my features. And yet the woman, who still remained in place, just laughed, commenting on the "pancy" of her partner. But something changed in her. 

I think, though I only theorize, that somehow the frequency of sound - the ugly, petty moan - has partly broken through whatever hex has taken her. Her posture changed. Her muscles tensed, her breathing took a deeper tone. Whatever happened in the darkness was unseen to me, but she, perhaps, could see it, being close. A scarce few moments later, the petulant voice subsided. The moan disgusted me; but what replaced it was much worse. A fleshy sound beyond description. I wander through my mind for words that fit the things I've heard right then, but in my life I've never heard a thing as horrible yet raw as what I did back then. Such sound might come from ancient slaughterhouses, where unsharpened knives of rusted iron fall upon unyielding flesh. The moan returned, accompanying it; whatever process was commencing in the alleyways of Neyna, the participant, the victim, was taking pleasure in it far beyond capacity for thought. 

The night was pierced by terror, then. The woman shrieked. The hex, the arcane charm that twists through thought has shattered in the face of what the shade released. A thing, a creature came. The sight of it has broken my breath. It was akin to man but not, wrong in every detail but the outline of its form, a rotten canvas drawn by blinded hands. It walked, if such a motion could be fit to be so called, from deeper shades, where the Nownlee girl, whom I won't see this night again, has walked and led the man. It wore remains of clothes, now tattered, ripped by flesh unfit for clothes or covers. It was much taller than a man. Much larger, and, in moments passed I'll learn, much stronger. The woman turned, and ran without regard; the creature leapt and fell upon her body, and ripped, in jagged, squirming motions, whatever covers separating flesh from flesh. 

I'd like, those days with shame, to see myself as an antipode of cowardice. My life was not as comfortable as my position may affirm. I've taken arms without duress, a volunteer with patriotic spirit. I've fought. The Great War has taken me and spat me mindlessly out back, to shamble home. I've seen the power man may set upon another; I've seen the creeping clouds of putrid yellow swallow trenches, and seen fire walk as shells have fallen where my soldiers dwelt. I've seen the horror of humanity: but what I witnessed now was horror far beyond humane. 

But what I did, when this thing was doing acts unspeakable before my eyes, was freeze with terror antediluvian in scope. There was no muscle, tendon or a bone that would've heed command; the scope of fear was such that even fleeing was beyond my will, for it seemed that running would confirm my presence, and thus doom me. I watched. With glassy eyes, and fingers locked upon the rough bricks of the corner I have hid myself behind, I watched. 

The thing was ripping at the woman, but not to kill, as I have first presumed. It was disrobing her, reducing cloth to jagged ribbons, and the way of motion that the thing displayed was somewhere in between a monstrous animal and a purpose made machine. It held the woman, once sufficiently naked in whatever putrid logic the thing had operated on, by her hands, and seemingly regarded what it held. With shame I say I did as well, incapable of my manly duty to avert my gaze of her disgrace. She was a supple beauty; what she lacked in elegance of feature, she did with youth of breast and shape of hip, the countryside perfection of a simple, fertile woman, pleasing to the spirit and the mind - which contrasted in dreadful ways with the monster dominating her. 

I understood, that moment, what the thing has set upon. It has released its member, which swayed with ugly mass against the pretty, pink femininity of its victim. The woman, who by sheer terror forced herself to close her eyes and bawl, have shrieked this moment, realizing what fate her tormentor has made for her: a shriek of pain and fear that robbed the blood of heat and forced the heart into a stand-still. But no-one came, nor I, the coward, the unsightly remnant of a once proud man, could move. 

It took her, then. With beastly glee, it forced its way into her loins, and held her by the hips against the brick-and-mortar wall. It moved in heavy, twitchy arks, producing sounds of scraping flesh and wet, disturbing strikes. The gonads of the thing were slapping, skin at skin, against the youthful thigh. The sounds still haunt me. A raw cacophony accentuated by weeps and bawling, and crowned with sounds that I cannot describe, born by a creature I try to vacate from my mind to no avail. It had her for a half a dozen minutes, but I'm not sure, for the terror held me, and time diluted to amorphous lengths. The wails, in time, subsided; the monster, then, increased its tempo, and I could swear I've seen the woman's torso being wretched and strained from deep within. That this unholy ceremony has not killed the Neyna youth outright was a blessing, or, perhaps, a curse: the thing, in time, has reached conclusion in a carnal sense, and whatever discharge it has bore was copius to such amounts that solid streams had fallen upon the cobblestones. 

The creature roared, then. I call it roar for the detail of its loudness. But no animal could such a sound produce. 

The woman was unconscious, by this point, her mind most likely shattered by the whole ordeal. I pray that it is so, and that it wasn't death from trauma to her organs that her limpness caused. I do not know, however, what result might be more merciful. The creature dragged her off its member and once again regarded what it held. And then it turned its face to me. 

I've seen it, and a direct description of it I will not commit to paper. There is a folk around the world who are, to fault, romantic; they offer sentimental wisdom and expect it to move hearts. They often say, amongst a number of such tritness, that eyes tell secrets and expose the soul; I knew, for fact and not opinion, that this is false, as eyes deceive more often than they don't. But now I trust their words. The eyes are certainly a gate into the inner sanctum of the mind; between its bars one captures glimpses of truth a man might want concealed and locked away, for truth is often ugly. 

I know this, because the inverse was revealed to me. In those eyes the thing presented I've seen a gate into the soul swung open, and the truth lie bare before me, and never in my life will I look a person in the eyes again. 

I'll add no more. Already have I said too much. 

…

It ran away that moment. It crippled me by glance and left, its female victim still in tow. I stood there, on the corner, for a longer while. A certain second past my vision darkened, breaking me from trance; in the primordial terror that beheld me I forgot to breathe. 

For how long have I stood there, my mind in whirlwind, considering the shattering event? Balancing fear and human composition, from pure emotion trying to remake a sentient mind? The sound of heartbeat and rugged, wheezing breath were all that I could hear. How long did it take me? A minute? Five, or ten? I do not know. But I regained composure, perhaps illusory, yet somewhat functioning; I walked into the alley, propelled by shallow steps. 

The remnants of the ravage still persisted. The viscous discharge of the monster, the rags and ribbons that remained of dress. A musky smell persisted in the darkness; I felt disgusted, for I knew its source, but soon thereafter felt that by itself it didn't bother me; perhaps it even revitalized my mind. I was ashamed of this realization, and hurried fast, into the shadows: I was obliged to find the final piece, the final unaccounted figure. The Nownlee girl, who I by sudden burst of a disgustingly fake bravery have at this moment desired to protect. 

Yet, within the deeper shades within the alley, there was no Nownlee girl, and I was plunged into uncertainty and doubt. She wasn't there. Perhaps she hid, I reasoned, but beyond a sturdy cart and empty barrels there was not a place to hide her. I walked around, and called her ("girl", for nothing batter my scarred imagination could not muster); but there was no response. Failing one search, I moved upon the next and looked for reason; how could this be? The disappearance of the Nownlee girl has put my thoughts in jeopardy and forced the whole ordeal into question. Did the scene of inhuman, monstrous carnality proceed before my eyes? Did I dream it, in my bored yet tired mind? Perhaps my drink was spiked by strangers for nefarious reasons, and thus I have been led astray by throes of the sickened mind? I turned and witnessed the result of the revolting rape I had beheld and shook my head. I am not mad, I have assured myself, but rather I am in a situation fit for maddened minds. 

I tried to formulate a course of action that would fit this situation; perhaps if I could make a plan my mind would find a respite from the aberration I have seen. My primal thought has raced towards my weapon; a Smith and Wesson, never shot in anger, that lay amongst my things where I in Neyna dwelt, but I've refused to run there. I reasoned so: the beast, for now, is gone, and in my present state my hand would surely miss whatever shot my mind would try and take. I reasoned, thus, to take my case to Neyna's sheriff; let people of the law take in their hands what I, as I was sure, cannot. 

The shortcomings of that idea were obvious to me. No man of sanity would take my words for granted; that I would be taken for a peddler of Penny Dreadfuls, or else a creature of a broken mind. How could I confer my words? I couldn't lie. I thus decided to provide itself a trimmed truth: I would report a rape. 

It made some sense to me, back then, but now I feel ashamed. It wasn't that my actions were improper or unjust; but now I know, without a doubt, that what transpired in my mind was not for justice, but for the sating of the self. I've witnessed things beyond my comprehension, and failing understanding, I've gone ahead with vilest, basic instincts: to push the trouble onto someone else. I was a coward wrapped in logic. But at the moment, I've seen no other conscious way. 

…

I reached the place and woke the sheriff, a turgid man contorted facially into an ever-present grin. His name I don't remember. We had a meeting just a day before discussing business for my company; the sheriff was entirely extatic and to our pricing had no meaningful objection. He took me seriously, then, when I approached from evening darkness; he reprimanded me for his disturbed slumber, but listened to me carefully, as best he could through veils of denied sleep. I soon was forced to lie, to my regret. He started asking basic questions which had no answer a sane man could ever give; he asked me why I didn't intervene on the behalf of the distressed, to pose an example of such questions. What answer could I give without a lie? That I cowered in whatever shadow would protect me, for the witnessed thing was not a man, but a monstrosity from darker dreams? I told him I haven't witnessed the entire act, but the tail end of it, and that the woman was unconscious and soon after dragged away. I explained that I'm unarmed and opted to report it first and foremost, for the woman could be in danger greater than the atrocity already on her forced. It is a shameful lie, of course. But to opt the man into cooperation it had to be concocted. 

The sheriff dressed and woke his deputy; they holstered Colts and followed me along the cobbled road. I showed them where the hellish act transpired; my voice was shaking, which validated claims I had produced before, though offered little compliment to my masculine integrity. But the reason for the meeking quality that took my voice was not what they presumed. 

The clues - the fluids, the ruined cloth - have disappeared. Not only them, I realized half-a minute past: the smells, the scratch marks on the cobbles. There was no sign of what I've seen a scarce half-hour back. I doubted myself harder than before; was I indeed insane, and dreamt the putrid scene out of my drunken mind? Perhaps I missed the place, and led the men of law into a different alley? But nothing fit. The place was right, but offered no assistance. It is a blessing, weirdly, that I have not described what happened there in detail; the sheriff didn't know what to expect, and I produced no tangible discrepancy for him to suspect my words as trite. He walked around, but, finding nothing suspect to the eye, he turned to me and sighed. I'll quote his words that moment as best as I can form them from my memory. 

"I'll be earnest here, mister." - he had muttered, - "Whatever happened here, well, it ain't here no more. The locals would have witnessed it, but… to be truthful, I can't imagine it, you know? A rape? In Neyna? There ain't a face in the entire town that I've never seen. This ain't the city. We know each other. Are you sure you've seen it? What you've seen? The rape?" 

I was shocked with his indifference; but wasn't there a truth to every word? Indeed, a town like Neyna is close-knit. It has no travellers in wads nor great unbalance in its populace. The people are all friendly, if obscenely boring for my temper. But it did not release me from my perceived, that moment, obligation. I answered this.

"Maybe… I wouldn't know, sheriff, I am an outsider to your town. But a malady of thought could hide inside the mind of someone you consider known, and push him…" 

The sheriff sensed the meek conviction of my words, and interrupting me. 

"Still, mister. Think about it, would you? Perhaps, indeed, a perpetrator hides in Neyna. An evil man. But what about the victim? We know each other. I've had mothers come to me by six past morning if their precious angel failed to show his face till five! If someone truly was… ah, you know, as you say it, then we'll be notified. By morning, not later. Don't worry, mister, we'll take care of it. Just, heh, go home. Take a swing of sherry and nap it all away." 

I felt defeated. The sheriff didn't care, or wouldn't put in effort. There was no external help. I offered my condolences for wasted time and went away, to face my thoughts alone. 

…

It took me longer than expected to return to my accomodations, a small, yet cozy building on the north of Neyna. My temporary landlord, a thin yet energetic elder in his sixties who refused to let his years put any stop to his emotive splendor, was fast asleep, and I would not disrupt him. I was afraid of shades, of figures in the dark. I walked as if pursued. Each step I took was slow and fearful, my legs suspecting treachery from the ground itself. But I was wrong and cowardly. My destination I have reached untouched and utterly ignored. 

As I closed the door behind me, I rushed to where my suitcase was with heavy breath until I had produced from its organization of files and papers a snubbed revolver and some ammo. I held it in my hand and let the weight flow into me as if it gave me blessings uttered by ancient gods. That weight, that feeling gave me safety - or a passable illusion of thereof. But it was enough to sate my mind and quell the many slithers of petrifying dread that lurked among my thoughts. It is, of course, a foolish way to see it: that a tiny gun held by an unstable hand could offer much against the creature that I've seen. But to be armed was to be capable of action. Inside my mind, I wasn't in no way a special man. But the lead idol marked, in neat, machined symbolics, as Special .38 has filled in that deficiency. 

I want to clear one final thing. The monster. You've surely noticed by now that my description of the creature was a vague blunder at the best of times There is a reason for it; a reason why I can't exactly say how the alley-born, disgusting ravager of Neyna has appeared before me. I remember it; my memory has not declined its chambers for the horror of that night. But I don't remember right. 

Every time I try to conjure up an image of that monster from inside my thoughts, I get a monstrous picture rather fitting, and every time, every single time it will be different. When I thought how to describe it to the law keepers of Neyne, I remembered it as a deathly thin monstrosity with limbs that numbered far too many joints; but moments past, as I declined the thought of telling the outrageous truth, the picture of the monster that has come to mind was different, a tall, insidious figure, vaguely human, but with gaping holes that dripped with darkness where the eyes should be. 

My memory is failing when it comes to the thing of Neyna. Somewhere, in my mind, there is a true representation of the thing; but I cannot envision it. I see monstrosities the moment I struggle to remember; but never constant, always different, as if any a macabre creature, no matter how abhorrent, my mind preferes to what it truly saw. 

Even now, after I've seen the Truth, the thing of Neyna cannot fit my mind. I think of it, right now: I see a being two heads taller than a man, with a bloated chest, its ribs innumerous and weirdly mobile under pressure from many a distending lung. I distract myself, for seconds, and try remembering a second time: now a thing more human shaped has sprung to torment me, endowed with many eyes on every surface of its head. I force my mind inside the alley, where the rape has taken place: now a slumped thing with crooked antlers, complex and overgrown, is raping the poor shrieking woman in the night. 

I'll never know how truly the thing looks: my mind forbids me, and I'll trust it. 

But another thing was still beyond me. One question. One truth. The same exact which soon, in just three days, will ruin me and doom me, and force me enact on page this final letter. 

The Nownlee girl. The golden child that walked into the streets of Neyna and led me to oblivion.


End file.
